A pathway to cultural connection
The First Welcome Trail is an a Nation led tourism experience developed by Indigenous Tourism BC (ITBC) in close partnership with Indigenous communities, community destination management organizations (CDMO), and corporate allies.
Rooted in the traditional protocols of welcome, the Trail reimagines how visitors engage with First Nations lands, languages, histories, and culture.
Launching as a regional pilot across the Vancouver Coast & Mountains and Vancouver Island regions, the Trail connects travellers to Nation-approved welcome poles, carvings, and cultural markers—supported by a rich digital storytelling experience. This pilot will establish a scalable model for future province-wide expansion, guided by Nation readiness and cultural permissions.
At its core, the First Welcome Trail is a cultural invitation, not a tourism product. It elevates First Nations voices and ensures that visitors learn through respectful, Nation-led pathways that honour the teachings, values, and protocols of the host communities.
The First Welcome Trail is a free, self-guided digital experience — there's no set route, no start time, and no finish line. You move through it at your own pace, in whatever direction your journey takes you.
The Trail spans two of BC's most visited regions: the Vancouver Coast & Mountains and Vancouver Island. Some sites are steps from a SkyTrain station or a Vancouver waterfront walk. Others ask more of you — a BC Ferries sailing to the Sunshine Coast, or a drive north to Campbell River — and they're worth every mile.
Start anywhere. The land will meet you there.
Learning doesn't stop at the welcome pole
Woven throughout the app are Knowledge BasednChallenges — place-based activations that invite you to go deeper into the cultures, histories, and languages of the Nations you're exploring. These aren't trivia questions. They are invitations to pay closer attention, reflect on what you've encountered, and carry something meaningful forward.
Each Nation has its own set of challenges, shaped by the stories and teachings their community has chosen to share. The questions you encounter on Musqueam territory will be distinct from those on Tsleil-Waututh or Shíshálh lands — because these are distinct peoples, with distinct histories, languages, and ways of knowing.
Complete challenges. Earn badges. Build your knowledge.
With multiple badges available across each Nation's challenges, there's always more to discover. Each one marks something genuinely earned — a teaching understood, a language encountered in the place it belongs, a layer of history that changes how you see the land around you.
Your badge collection is a record of where you've been and what you've learned — a travelling map of knowledge, earned on the land.
Download the First Welcome Trail app (free on iOS and Android). You can browse from home before you leave, or open it once you arrive somewhere new. Explore sites near your location, read about the Nations whose territories you're passing through, or let the app guide you with proximity alerts as you move through the land.
Follow your own path The self-guided experience puts the map in your hands. Browse 75+ sites across participating Nations, build your own route, and move through territories at your own rhythm. Whether you have an afternoon in the city or a week to travel the coast, the Trail shapes itself around your journey.
Follow a Nation-led itinerary For a deeper, curated experience, choose one of the Nation-led itineraries available in the app. These are not generic tour routes — they are pathways shaped by the communities themselves, reflecting what each Nation has chosen to share and how they want visitors to understand their territory. Each itinerary is a distinct cultural invitation, with its own sequence, its own stories, and its own sense of place.
he Trail is designed to travel with you, however you're moving through the territory.
On foot & by transit Many Vancouver-area sites are walkable or easily reached by SkyTrain and bus. The app maps each site so you can build a route that works with how you're already moving through the city.
By ferry BC Ferries connects travellers to Sunshine Coast territories and Vancouver Island — home to some of the Trail's most remarkable sites. Consider the crossing part of the experience: you're already travelling through Indigenous waters.
By vehicle For communities further afield — including Wei Wai Kum and Wei Wai Kai Nations in Campbell River — a road trip is the way. Nation-led itineraries in the app can help you shape a meaningful day or multi-day journey.
We are grateful for the support and participation of these communities.
Thank you to our many partners who have contributed to this project.
Indigenous Tourism BC acknowledges that it is situated on operates on the unceded traditional territories of the xʷməθkʷəy̓əm (Musqueam Indian Band), Sḵwx̱wú7mesh Úxwumixw (Squamish Nation), and səlilwətaɬ (Tsleil-Waututh Nation).
